


see the same stars

by greenbucket



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Babysitting, Dancing, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Humor, M/M, Multi, OT3, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:15:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24970663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbucket/pseuds/greenbucket
Summary: Collection of ficlets and drabbles of the Aang/Katara/Zuko variety!
Relationships: Aang/Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 19
Collections: Zutaraang Week





	1. Babysitting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aang, Katara, and Zuko do some babysitting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the [zutaraangtastic](https://zutaraangtastic.tumblr.com/) drabble event on Tumblr, filling the 'zutaraang on babysitting duty' prompt.

Baby Uki’s delighted screeches get louder with every air-bending-secured fling into the air. Aang isn’t sure this is exactly what Katara’s cousin had in mind when she asked them to watch Uki, but who is he to deny such a simple joy to such a cute baby?

“You’re sure you know what you’re doing?” Katara asks, scepticism ruined by her helpless smile at Uki’s happiness. 

“Of course I do! Look, she’s loving it!” Aang keeps Uki in his lap this time when she comes down, though. “Tell Auntie Katara you were loving it, Uki.”

Uki shrieks her agreement, smacking Aang in the face with surprising strength as she flails. He claps the hand not supporting a super strength baby to his stinging cheek. “Oh, f- I mean, monkey socks. Ow, Uki!” 

Katara, failing badly at hiding her laughter, asks, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Aang feels the inside of his cheek with his tongue, and the outside with his hand. “I think she scratched me though! Ouch, those sharp little nails. Zuko, take her for a second?”

Zuko, unwilling babysitter and self-proclaimed much-better-with-older-children-er, has been sitting several feet away with his shoulders around his ears, almost on top of Uki’s sleeping basket. “Uh.”

“Come on!” Aang insists. “She’s so sweet. You’ll love her. Won’t he, Uki? He’ll love you!”

The persuasive effect is maybe a little ruined by the fact he’s still feeling over the gouges Uki’s tiny nails have left in his face. Still, Zuko shuffles to the edge of the cleared, designated playing space and allows Aang to hand Uki over.

“That’s your Uncle Zuko,” Katara explains to Uki and then, just as brightly, “And he’s holding you like you’re a mangy kitten, isn’t he? Yes he is, oh, yes he is.”

“I am not!” Zuko yelps, going red. But he’s not immune to Uki’s charms or to Katara’s shaming; he stops holding Uki stiffly away from his body with his hands, shifting to holding her stiffly against his body with his arms. 

She blinks up at him, quiet, considering the development. As the quiet stretches, the half-hopeful expression slides from Zuko’s face. “Uh, does she not…?” _Like me_ , Aang finishes in his head, which is adorable. 

Call it Avatar powers – call it a sixth sense, since Katara makes the exact same aborted movement – but Aang realises what’s about to happen half a second before Uki turns her head, makes a small _blep_ sound, and sicks up nearly all her milk from earlier.

It’s mostly on herself, but it’s also a lot down Zuko’s chest. 

Impossibly, Zuko goes stiffer than before as it spreads and seeps. For a moment Uki looks deeply content, but then the discomfort of wet, milky clothes and Zuko’s paralysed-with-horror grip dawn on her and she starts wailing, wriggling and kicking so hard Zuko almost drops her.

After a surprised second, Katara (failing even harder than before to hide her laughter) takes pity and bends the worst of the puke away from both of them. She whisks a still-grizzling Uki out of Zuko’s arms, getting up to walk about the room and stroke Uki’s wispy baby hair and coo, “Oh, now, don’t cry. Don’t cry, we’re going to get you all fixed up, aren’t we? Yes we are.”

Zuko, still silent, stares after Uki and Katara like it’s the worst betrayal he’s ever experienced. Which Aang wouldn’t say is the case, but he supposes it’s a subjective definition.


	2. Egg Custard Tarts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara buys three egg custard tarts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: post-Aang's death.   
> For the [zutaraangtastic](https://zutaraangtastic.tumblr.com/) drabble challenge on Tumblr, filling the prompt 'older Katara and Zuko talking about Aang after his death'.

“Katara?”

She follows Zuko gaze: at the top of the basket, otherwise packed with food for Zuko’s stay, are three egg custard tarts. Aang’s favourite.

“Oh.”

Katara is so, so sure enough time hasn’t passed yet for her to have unthinkingly picked tarts up at the market, as had once been her routine. Not with the way she’s been strictly avoiding Mr Song’s stall for months now and how grief still sticks sharp in her throat at the most unexpected of times. 

The possibility that she just absentmindedly thought Aang was away with Zuko on a trip, like nothing’s changed, is inconceivable. But the tarts are still all there. Three of them. Katara can’t think how to explain herself, or what the next step should be.

Finally, Zuko breaks the silence to suggest, “We could, uh, eat them anyway. After dinner?”

“All three?” 

“Why not?”

Katara wants to say that they were Aang’s favourite, not either of theirs. She doesn’t even really like egg custard tart that much, how will they get through three? But Zuko is trying; she can too. 

So, instead, she goes for a lighthearted, “Even though he always said they never quite tasted right?”

It comes out sounding all wrong anyway. Zuko’s mouth is tight and Katara’s chest hurts. They let the _well, he’s not here to say_ anything _anymore_ hang in the air unspoken. 

A growing part of Katara, abruptly furious that what time they have together has been soured already, wants to snap and start an argument over her own mistake. But it’s far from the first time one of them has been tripped up by the spaces Aang’s left behind; they’re already becoming practiced at navigating them.

“Come on, Katara,” says Zuko after a pause, with moderately successful forced levity. “I know you know it’s ‘they don’t—“

“— taste the same, not they don’t taste right.” She heard Aang needlessly defend his issues with Mr Song’s tarts with the exact words so many times she can’t not hear it in his voice. “I know.” 

Zuko tries a smile that comes out more bittersweet than real. “But never where Mr Song could hear him.”

“Never where Mr Song could hear him,” Katara agrees. Her anger washes away as soon as it’d appeared. Repeating Aang’s words, talking about him, without Aang there to fake outrage at their teasing stings as much as it soothes; but ultimately it _does_ soothe.

She takes Zuko’s hand and squeezes it, apology and comfort wrapped in one, then sets the custard tarts aside to start unpacking the basket properly.

“Get some plates while I put this all away,” she orders, steadier than either of them can be feeling. “Let’s have dessert for dinner. Just this once, okay? You must be tired from the journey, and I’m sure neither of us feel like cooking.”


	3. Trip to the Beach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aang, Katara, and Zuko go to the beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for Zutaraang Week 2020 day 1: jealousy

Aang is too tired to make it to the beach with Zuko and Katara.

It’s sunny, warm but not hot with the breeze coming in from the sea. They’ve walked long enough that Aang can smell the salt and hear the waves crashing against the shore. Maybe he’d feel better if he could just _see_ it, see where the blue waves meet the blue sky, and be there with Zuko and Katara the way they’d all been looking forward to for weeks.

But the thought alone of the rest of the walk, the unsteady footsteps he’s going to have to take across the pebbles and shifting sand when he’s already aching and short of breath, is the final straw. Their short walk along the even, flattened-grass path has been tiring enough already.

A rock a little way away calls to him irresistibly. It’s not even a comfortable looking rock, but he sits on it. He feels his body creak in places he didn’t know a body could creak and pushes down the spitting frustration that he can’t even make it to the _beach_.

He starts, “You two go on, I’ll catch you up in a...” and then realises Zuko and Katara are too far ahead to hear him.

They’re walking arm in arm and chatting. Zuko laughs at something Katara says and she shoves him, both of them staggering sideways where their arms are still linked. Aang can’t help but smile as they right themselves, some of the frustration easing.

They’ll notice he’s fallen behind in a minute. It’s not the first time he’s done that lately, though this is the quickest it’s taken.

Zuko laughs again, Katara laughing with him this time, carefree and weightless. They’re almost over the way, onto the sand, and suddenly there’s a fierce twinge in Aang’s chest that has nothing to do with how tight it is.

Aang still gets a little thrill sometimes, seeing Zuko and Katara enjoy each other’s company, a relic from back when they were getting to know each other and some days it seemed like they were only doing it for his sake. This isn’t one of those times. Now, watching them, he can’t shake the stark reminder that _they’re_ the duo, an unaware team of two while he’s something separate.

 _Going in a different direction_ is the euphemistic phrase that comes to mind. It’s not a thought he wants to touch even then. Obviously they’re going in different directions, Aang rationalises: he’s still having to sit on his dumb rock, they’re walking to the beach.

He sighs. He’s not _twelve_. Sure, maybe partly he’s thinking about it just because he’s wishing he could laugh _with_ them, not be stuck sitting and watching. Especially since they barely see enough of each other these days. More than that, though, Aang’s thinking about it because he can tell neither of them are aching down to their bones, feeling light-headed and shaky from a simple stroll.

A dizzy prickly jealousy washes over him in waves, his jaw clenched enough to hurt.

They’re walking and laughing with so much ease, like there’s so much time laid out in front of them. There _is_ so much. They’re all of them in their sixties now, and feeling it a little, but it’s nothing. Slowing down is to be expected; Zuko takes a nap on the couch after Fire Lord duties more often than he has since their twenties, and Katara has been wincing when she bends to pick things up for years.

There are years and years ahead of them, only it’s years of time that Aang increasingly can’t see.

Well, he can visualise them: Zuko and Katara and their friends and all their plans playing out for better or worse; their children, astonishingly grown up and making their own paths in a way that gives him delight, apprehension, and awe in equal parts; the various faces and places which will stll be ticking along, undisturbed. It's all clear enough it stings. What Aang can’t do is see himself there, can’t make his body carry on so he can be a part of that future.

Aang isn’t scared about the dying bit. The getting old bit is simply a part of life, too, one he’s lucky to have any experience with in the first place. But he’d really like to stick around just a little longer.

Zuko and Katara are out of sight, even their voices hidden by the sounds of the sea. Aang allows the frustration and the jealousy and the grief to wash over him afresh for a moment or two more, then he starts practising the same calming techniques that have served him well enough his whole life.

Aang breathes in. He’s always known his body, so that it’s on its way out isn’t news. He breathes out. He’s already had some (strictly private) words with the White Lotus about what’s going to happen next. It’s good to have that plan in place, at least, when everything else is uncertain and difficult. He breathes in. When it comes down to it, Aang wants to enjoy the time he has left, so there’s no point getting upset at Zuko and Katara about everything. Especially when he hasn’t talked to them about it yet. He breathes out.

Fresh resolve and the breathing exercises don’t make him feel all the way better, and they don’t make his body ache any less, but they still help.

Aang knows the three of them have one really bad conversation ahead of them, and then another really bad one he hopes they can do together with family, but he wants to make the most of the good things too. For one, he might be the one slowing down much quicker, but he’s determined he’s not going to suddenly start skimping on any age-related teasing opportunities, or turn down any age-related foot massage offers. 

When Zuko and Katara double back to find him in a minute, he’s going to ignore their shared looks of concern, and take their overcompensating cheerfulness and a supporting arm each in stride. It’s the perfect day for the beach. They’ll have plenty more, probably, but Aang still isn’t going to miss this one, just in case.


	4. Right Foot Left Stomp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dancing!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the zutaraangtastic drabble challenge on tumblr, filling the prompt 'teaching eachother different dances'. Also for day 2 of Zutaraang Week 2020: secrets! And shout out to the zutaraang discord where this was definitely discussed at some point.

“I’ve got a secret,” Aang whispers. His tone is aiming for something somber and conspiratorial, only they’ve reached a stage in the evening that’s far too giggly for that. 

Zuko is mostly trying really, really, really hard not to look at Aang’s mouth. But Aang’s right there, falling against Zuko on the couch, and Aang might just be drunk on the company of others but Zuko’s had a fair amount to actually drink.

“A secret?” Katara asks from Zuko’s other side, head popping up over his shoulder and her breath against his ear in a way that doesn’t help at all.

“A secret,” Aang confirms. He sweeps to his feet with surprising grace and holds out a hand to both of them. “Come with me. I’ll show you.”

Some eight minutes later, the coffee table has been pushed against the wall and the three of them are smacking into each other and tripping over Aang and Katara’s shitty rug in an attempt at coordinated dancing. 

Surprise of surprises, Aang’s secret isn’t whatever outlandish fantasy Zuko hadn’t been having. Aang’s secret, it turns out, is a deep, profound, and confounding love of the Cha Cha Slide.

They’ve already gone through the song once with Aang demonstrating the moves. It had seemed simple enough, but the music tells them _to the left_ and, unreasonably disorientated and like he’s possessed, Zuko goes right.

“To the _left_ ,” Katara yells, grabbing Zuko’s arm. She pulls him left and then sharply backwards, the music having already moved on to _take it back now, y’all_.

“How do you already know all of this?” Zuko asks, doing his _one hop_ a beat too late.

Katara rolls her eyes like she’s not just as new to this dance as Zuko is, like they hadn’t been snorting with laughter at the fact that _this_ is Aang’s oh-so-secret love a minute ago. “Just follow the instructions.”

Aang nods encouragingly and says, “Right foot left stomp,” like that helps.

Zuko only lasts until they’re told to _criss-cross_ before Aang and Katara pause the music and take an executive decision to relegate him to the couch until the next go around of the song. 

“But relegation is no vacation, okay?” Katara tells him with the firmness and wagging finger of the truly tipsy. “You’re going to _study_ what we’re doing.”

Aang is outraged. He presses play and yells over the booming sound, “Study? This is a slumber party and we’re _dancing_. No studying!”

“Okay, you’re right,” Katara agrees, her put-on severe expression melting away. “Time to get funky.” Her impression of the singer as she says it is so bad.

Katara and Aang dance with ease along to the vague call for _hands on your knees, hands on your knees!_ Zuko doesn’t get it; he’s not usually actually bad at dancing, especially not ones where the entire song tells you exactly what to do, but maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe it’s that stupid right foot left stomp. Maybe it’s Aang and Katara being there, on a Friday night, having a pyjama party with him because they think he’s sad over breaking up with Mai.

Zuko takes a sip of the drink Katara had ruthlessly mixed for him and claps along when the song tells them to. He has to sink back into the couch as Aang and Katara demonstrate some _how low can you go_ even though it’s not like, actually sexy _,_ it’s just _–_ but anyway. 

He laughs along with them when they trip over each other doing _reverse, reverse!_ and when they collapse in a heap on the rug, calling for time out, Zuko helps them both to their feet. 

It’s all so sweet, a well-intentioned distraction. Zuko isn’t sure if it makes him more or less at risk of blurting that it’s not his _break up_ that’s been on his mind.


End file.
